DE 298 04 419 U1 describes an electrical plug connector part having a housing that is divided lengthwise. The housing is made up of two support body parts. Each support body part has multiple molded-in, parallel, channel-like plug contact receptacles. The support body parts are lockable against one another. Integrally formed blocking elements on each support body part engage with locking openings in the respective other support body part, thus locking plug contacts in the plug contact receptacles in a form-fit manner.
It is disadvantageous that assembling the housing by locking the support body parts cannot take place until after all plug contacts have been inserted. Since otherwise, the blocking elements that engage with the plug contact receptacles prevent insertion of the plug contacts into the plug contact receptacles. Thus, the housing of the plug connector part cannot be pre-assembled without the plug contacts inserted.
In DE 10 2008 052 822 A1 (corresponding to U.S. Publication No. 2011/0294324), FIGS. 19 through 24 thereof illustrate a plug connector part having a housing made up of two housing parts designed as half-shells. The half-shells are manufacturable as identical parts. The half shells have integrally formed parallel grooves on their joinable contact surfaces in the longitudinal direction. When the half-shells are joined together, the grooves form respective channel-like receiving spaces extending in parallel through the housing in the longitudinal direction. When the plug connector part is completely assembled, a plug contact and a section of a feed line (i.e., wire, cable, etc.) connected to the plug contact are inserted into each of the receiving spaces.
The plug contacts are each held in a form-fit manner within the receiving spaces by a ring-shaped projection. The feed lines are fixed in the receiving spaces by integrally formed strain relief elements. Due to this design, the plug contacts must be attached to one of the half-shells prior to joining the half-shells. The joining of the half-shells may take place by adhesive bonding or ultrasonic welding. Thus, here as well, the plug contacts together with their feed lines are already fixedly pre-mounted on the housing of the plug connector part after the housing parts are joined.
For many applications, pre-mounting the feed lines on a plug connector is disadvantageous and therefore is not desirable. If, for example, during laying of cables in a motor vehicle the connecting lines (i.e., wires, cables, etc.) of various devices are to be led to a single multipole plug connector, then it is disadvantageous when the connecting lines are already fixedly connected to the plug connector. It is disadvantageous since, in this case, either the cabling must be laid starting from the plug connector, or in each case additional line connections must be established between device feed lines and the connecting lines of the plug connector.
Also known are plug connector housings with circumferentially closed receiving channels. The receiving channels are initially empty. Push-on sleeves connected to feed lines are inserted into the receiving channels using an elastic detent element (lance). The lance is then held in the receiving channels in a locking manner. DE 298 04 419 U1, cited above, describes this type of plug connector housing with molded-in channels. Forming channels is relatively complicated in injection molding since producing detent elements in the receiving channels require complex slider geometries in the injection mold. Due to the high costs of such a mold and the relatively long cycle times through the complicated injection molding operation, the plug connectors manufactured in this way are quite costly.